Live as a district, die as a district

Sister Wynn's District, with Singapore and Malaysia flags in front of the Provo Temple.

Selamat pagi everyone,

Wow, it's true what they say about missions, the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. Time is so warped here. Sometimes it feels like I've been here for only a couple weeks, other times it feels like I've been here a year. I can't believe I only have 17 months left on my mission. Actually less. The Elders in my district joke that I'm pretty much done with my mission, haha.

If any of you want to write me letters, send them before the 4th-ish because I leave Tuesday afternoon to go to Singapore! If not, send them to my Singapore address instead, but make sure to put an extra stamp on it. I'm getting trunky, but at the same time it feels like I know almost no Malay. I'm excited to meet people and realize I can't understand what they're saying, but no worries, even in those situations I'm all smiles. We got our travel itinerary on Friday, and we were so excited! We have a 6 hour layover in LAX, then a hour layover in Hong Kong, then we fly down to Singapore. It's going to take over a day to get there. I'm stoked. I love planes and airports. It runs in the family. We are traveling with the Indos to LAX, so our plane is going to be full of mostly missionaries. We are also traveling with the other Singapore missionaries who are English-speaking, who live over on the Main Campus. In our travel group, there's 25 of us. 

In other exciting news, we got our malaria pills last week, as well as our second round of Japanese encephalitis shots. I kind of like getting shots, so no big deal. Except this vaccine makes your arm so sore. Yay for preventative medical measures. Since we went up to Main Campus for our doctors appointments, we stopped by the Main Campus book store because that place is magical and way bigger than the store on West Campus. We were happy to see they finally had the Book of Mormon printed in Malay, so we bought some. Before, we were given copies in Indonesian. The other standard works, like our Bibles, are still in Indonesian, but hey, it's a start. 

I also cried for the first time at the MTC on Friday. Well, I cry a little every week, but these were tears of frustration this time. I was feeling pretty discouraged all week because I'm pretty awful at asking good questions in my lessons, even in English, especially in English, and I was feeling like I'm not a good teacher. I also had a bad morning full of little annoying things. I had to teach one of my teachers, Brother Horman. I don't even remember about what, but I was doing pretty bad. He could tell I was pretty bummed, and was trying so hard to spare my feelings but give teaching advice at the same time. I shed a couple tears and wiped them away really fast so my district wouldn't see, because that would be embarrassing. Long story short, I got over it, felt better, and accepted that sometimes I will have bad days. Not even bad days, just bad moments. I'm not a bad teacher, I know more Malay than I think I do, and I've only been a missionary for a month. It's okay not to be perfect right now. Anyway, Brother Horman and Brother Simon rock. I could tell they were amazing missionaries, and they're such good teachers. If I could come back speaking half as well as them, I'd be pretty happy.

For Sunday's devotional, President Nally (the president of the MTC) opened his address by talking about the rain last week and how because it was so dark and the rain was so heavy, it took some of us half an hour to walk home. He said as our branch presidencies waited for us in our classrooms, they admired our good spirits and in some cases, outright joy at having to walk home while being soaked. He said as we were drenched with rainwater, their faces were drenched with tears. It was really sweet. I really appreciate everyone that works/is called here at the MTC.

I love my district. I love my district. We are all such good friends and I have so much love for every Elder here. I will miss them once we get to the field. Brother Simon reassured me that I will see everyone more times than I can count in the field because of our visa trips and whatnot.

Elder Ferguson is from Birmingham, Alabama. Brother Simon calls him 'Bama Boy. He was our first district leader, and now he's our zone leader. I taught with him and his companion the first three weeks we were here. He acted in a huge production of Les Mis, and he acted with Samantha Barks. He played tennis for Weber State and had an IMDB page. He gave all of that up to be here. He's definitely the character in our district. He's so funny and says things like "janky" and "ratchet." It doesn't even make sense, but we all say stuff like that now. He once tried to say, "Saya lucu," in Malay, which means "I'm funny," but accidentally said "Saya luca!" which means "I'm pornographic/obscene."

Elder Liddle is his companion, and he's our other zone leader. He's from Highland, Utah, and he's really tall and really skinny. He's just out of high school and has these little Bambi eyes. He was really shy the first couple days, but he is so, so, so funny. He does perfect voice impersonations, and sometimes freaks Elder Ferguson out by doing his Smeagle voice in the middle of the night. My favorite is his smoker-lady voice though. He's also really, really smart and really humble. His Malay rocks. He and Elder Ferguson are like C3PO and R2D2 respectively.

Elder Vincent is from Pocatello, Idaho, and is one of the most genuine people I know. He studied Malay the most before he came here and is awesome at speaking it. He also knows a little bit of every language, it seems like. He's just good at languages and grammar. I wish I had that gift. I actually talked to him a little online before our missions and he gave me lots of good language advice.

Elder O'Bryant, aka Elder Whitelion, is his companion and is from Arlington, Washington. He is our resident computer genius, and one of the most lovable Elders. He's pretty quiet and has a low voice, and has the most contagious laugh I've ever heard. Though he's quiet, he speaks Malay really well. Elder Capener gave him the nickname Whitelion, and it stuck. Elder Capener, Elder Strathearn and I are currently working on teaching him to cartwheel. They flipped him over a couple weeks ago, but got excited and kind of threw him. From a distance it probably looked like we were beating him up, but in reality we were all having so much fun.

Elder Strathearn is from Houston, Texas, but Australian-born. He lived in Australia until he was 7, so sometimes his accent comes out on random words, like talk, prawns, and crayon. I teach with him and Elder Capener now. He is the guy who always makes sure everyone is included, and he always gives people the benefit of the doubt. I find myself doing the same since I've been around him. His Malay has improved the most, I think, because he's constantly practicing. One day at dinner, he found out everyone else in our district was proficient at another language except him, and he said while laughing, "This explains SO much!" He's pretty optimistic, but I think that inspired him to practice harder and now his Malay is rockin'.

Elder Capener is our new district leader. He's from Riverside, Utah, and he's also half-Japanese, except third generation. I joke that we're the same person, except he's way cooler than me. I'm pretty sure he could beat anyone up, he's pretty scrappy. He is amazing at basketball and baseball. He had a scholarship to play baseball in Northern California. He speaks Malay the most like a native. When I was asking him for advice, he told me to speak Malay with an Indian accent. It works. He saves our lessons when Elder Strathearn and I have no idea what our teachee just said.

Elder Jackson is from Lehi, Utah. The smart ones are also the quiet ones. He studied at Embry-Riddle, which really impressed me the first time I heard that, because it's a great school. He's the most diligent out of all of us. When the rest of us are goofing off around him during study time, his face is buried in his notebook or scriptures and he later tells us about what he learned. He also gets bored and mixes juice at the cafeteria, and we try it. So far, we have Rasberry Crappleaid, and 7 Deadly Sins. Our district is pretty sure he's a spy. He also knows a lot of Chinese and Swedish.

Elder Parker is from San Antonio, Texas, but he lived in Shanghai for two years. He is the perfect companion for Elder Jackson, because Elder Jackson is punctual, and Elder Parker is a free spirit. He makes fun of me the most, but is also so chivalrous and makes sure I'm okay. He's also the one that gets the most injuries out of all of us. He has two giant divots in his shin from jumping off a retaining wall the day before he reported.

I see these Elders as big brothers and little brothers at the same time, but most importantly, I see these men as men of God. Singapore and Malaysia are so lucky to be getting them. I'm so lucky to have met them.

I will miss the MTC when I leave, but I'm so excited to be in the mission field. I'm going to hit the ground running. I will miss these Elders, but we have lots of work to do.

Live as a district, die as a district.

West Campus, Best Campus.

Harap Tuhan sertamu selalu.

Sayang,

Sister Wynn